It may have taken EA years to see the writing on the wall, but it’s official: Anthem is dead.
Two years ago, EA and BioWare launched a game that on the surface, had everything going for it. A massive world to explore, highly customisable mech Javelin suits to pilot around dangerous biomes, and action-packed gameplay all made for what should have been the next big thing in live service games. A month later, Anthem was flopping harder than a beached whale, bleeding players, and buggered on all sides by a number of technical problems that exposed a game with no real direction.
Plans to bring the game back from the brink of that demise involved a small team of BioWare developers working day and night on concepts for “Anthem NEXT”, but with the coronavirus pandemic throwing several spanners into this plan, EA has pulled the plug on its ambitious Destiny-killer. “I know this will be disappointing to the community of Anthem players who have been excited to see the improvements we’ve been working on,” BioWare Austin studio head Christian Dailey said in an update.
It’s also disappointing for the team who were doing brilliant work. And for me personally, Anthem is what brought me to BioWare, and the last two years have been some of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my career.
Earlier this month, EA assembled its legion of potential doom to decide on whether or not to continue dedicating resources to Anthem or to call it a day on the game. The decision to finally end a lacklustre and expensive experiment was made, although EA has confirmed that for now, the servers will remain on for those people who still play Anthem.
“Game development is hard. Decisions like these are not easy. Moving forward, we need to laser focus our efforts as a studio and strengthen the next Dragon Age, and Mass Effect titles while continuing to provide quality updates to Star Wars: The Old Republic,” Dailey concluded.
To the Anthem community, thank you for your passion and creativity. Your feedback and suggestions most certainly help shape the team’s direction, and on a personal note, your kindness and encouragement were much needed last year.
It’s the end of a very weird era, but EA won’t be losing too much sleep. Having recently spent a casual $1.2 billion on acquiring Codemasters, it’s ready to buckle down and roll out a number of racing games. As for BioWare, it’s knee-deep in development on a new Mass Effect.
Last Updated: February 25, 2021
konfab
February 25, 2021 at 00:35
EA: Lets buy up Bioware, a studio with a reputation for making high quality single player RPGS.
6
Also EA: Lets make them make a Destiny Clone, because our own Destiny Clone, Titanfall somehow isn’t good enough.
GreasySpoon
February 25, 2021 at 02:11
Titanfall is more of a COD clone than a Destiny clone
OddSockZA
February 25, 2021 at 02:13
(and also predates Destiny)
Kervyn Cloete
February 25, 2021 at 02:43
Technically, COD (specifically the future-set Advanced Warfare stuff) is a Titanfall clone.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
February 25, 2021 at 03:54
You mean a COD improvement
Iskape
February 25, 2021 at 01:31
Oh well, I guess it was inevitable, although, deep down I was secretly hoping they could pull if out of the doldrums. It had most of the ingredients of a great game, but they were just mixed badly, and led to a flop of a cake!
HairyEwok
February 25, 2021 at 01:50
I guess the No Man’s Sky dream for Anthem is dead then. Unless EA loosens it’s greedy grip and sells the IP to a dev company that can make it the amazing game it can be.
DapperWoef
February 25, 2021 at 02:10
Wasn’t devs from Mass Effect Andromeda pulled from that game to work on Anthem?
Either way, EA bollocksed 2 games for the price of one.
I love Andromeda, some bugs and ugly graphics notwithstanding and would love to see a follow up. Maybe EA should do just that. With Bioware doing ME: NextShep a team should work on Andromeda 2.
Justin Stewart
February 25, 2021 at 02:34
To hell with EA and BioWare I opted not to refund the game because I believed they would fix it but of course I was stupid to think that and it’s a decision I’m regretting now a fucking waste of money lesson learned don’t go by what you see at E3 because it is likely fucking smoke and mirrors and not what the game will be. A big fuck you to EA!
Justin Stewart
February 25, 2021 at 02:42
To hell with EA and BioWare I opted not to refund the game because I believed they would fix it but of course I was stupid to think that and it’s a decision I’m regretting now a fucking waste of money lesson learned don’t go by what you see at E3 because it is likely fucking smoke and mirrors and not what the game will be. A big fuck you to EA!
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
February 25, 2021 at 03:53
You must be new to the Earth
Justin Stewart
February 25, 2021 at 16:39
Fuck off.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
February 27, 2021 at 03:02
Have a cuppa tea, son. It’ll be ok
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
February 25, 2021 at 03:52
it’s ready to buckle down and ruin a number of racing franchises.
There, I fixed it for you.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
February 25, 2021 at 03:56
”
but with the coronavirus pandemic throwing several spanners into this plan”
They can’t blame covid for a cock-up that happened two/three years prior XD
Dee ham
February 25, 2021 at 03:59
maybe they’ll learn better than to let a bunch of obstinate pencil pushers have creative control over an IP.
I know it’s extremely unlikely, but a guy can dream.
it’s likely that they’re blaming this whole thing on entitled man baby gamers who are “ungrateful for all our tireless efforts”
Mandalorian Jim
February 25, 2021 at 07:45
Now please put Bioware out of its misery. It’s just cruel to keep on stringing that rotting corpse along.
https://media4.giphy.com/media/3oEhmV6sTk89MNCWZO/giphy.gif
Dee ham
February 25, 2021 at 13:32
I wouldn’t put it past EA to do such a thing. remind me, how many game studios have they already killed?